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Apple TV and External Hard Drive
- Thread starter gazfocus
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How did you point your iTunes to the external drive?
How did you point your iTunes to the external drive? Did you just drag the iTunes folder into the external drive or did you do it through iTunes?
Please help, I am missing my media!
THANK YOU!!!
~Matt
How did you point your iTunes to the external drive? Did you just drag the iTunes folder into the external drive or did you do it through iTunes?
Please help, I am missing my media!
THANK YOU!!!
~Matt
Go into iTunes...File/Add to Library...and select the folder(s) on your external drive containing your media files.
Note: When you select "Add to Library" you will get a "Finder" dialog box where you can then select the location of your files. In my case...my external drive is connected to my AirPort Extreme...so I first had to select my Airport Extreme under "Shared" devices then I selected my WD "My Book"...then the folder containing my media.
Note: When you select "Add to Library" you will get a "Finder" dialog box where you can then select the location of your files. In my case...my external drive is connected to my AirPort Extreme...so I first had to select my Airport Extreme under "Shared" devices then I selected my WD "My Book"...then the folder containing my media.
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Drag the whole iTunes folder over to the external drive. Hold down option key on keyboard while opening iTunes and you will get a dialog with an option to "choose library" or something similar, just navigate to the external and choose the folder... Done. Your whole iTunes library is now on your external... Of course the other way is to keep your iTunes folder on your boot drive and just change the location of your media folder in iTunes but I prefer to keep it all together in one place... Hope this helps.
hey dont you have to convert those files to mp4 itunes format first. you just can't have avis on othe drive right...
hey dont you have to convert those files to mp4 itunes format first. you just can't have avis on othe drive right...
Yes they were converted by Handbrake. I said they were my iTunes movies...either .mp4 or .m4v...
I have a 2TB HD external connected to my MacPro. I use 'Option drag' to place on my iTunes (this gives iTunes a path to the movie without making a dup copy). My 
TV sees all my 500+ movies and streams them. All my movies are .mov (Quicktime) and not .m4v or .mp4 and they play just fine.
TV sees all my 500+ movies and streams them. All my movies are .mov (Quicktime) and not .m4v or .mp4 and they play just fine.
Success! My iTunes library is now on my external drive, and I freed up about 100GB of space on my Macbook! And no problems streaming to ATV2. I opted for Bevz' method of moving the entire library to the harddrive. Perfect. Thanks!
Hi Guys,
Have a small issue with my Apple TV.
Hooked it up to my network and it sees all my music fine (stored on my internal HD)
When I go to movies (stored on my external HD) ATV only sees the one movie that is stored on my imacs internal HD. It does not seem to see the other 12 or so that are stored on my external HD. I can see them on my computer and itunes plays them fine.
I have added the movies from the external HD opting to not copy them to the internal HD of my imac, as that drive is only 500mb.
Any ideas?
Have a small issue with my Apple TV.
Hooked it up to my network and it sees all my music fine (stored on my internal HD)
When I go to movies (stored on my external HD) ATV only sees the one movie that is stored on my imacs internal HD. It does not seem to see the other 12 or so that are stored on my external HD. I can see them on my computer and itunes plays them fine.
I have added the movies from the external HD opting to not copy them to the internal HD of my imac, as that drive is only 500mb.
Any ideas?
I guess the question is - are you actually adding them to the iTunes library, or are you just playing them. In particular - are you having iTunes organize your media (for everything), and then not actually adding the
external files to library, just playing them?
If you are having iTunes organize your media, then I suspect you are never adding the files to your itunes library, and you'll have to change something. If you don't want to have the video files on the internal drive, I think you'll have to do something to stop having iTunes manage your media (i.e. no longer have it copy media into its own db), and then you can have one or more locations for your media, and it should be seen by iTunes, and as a result, by the ATV.
I'm not sure if you'll have to do something to export your currently managed media (music) when you stop having iTunes manage it.
If you currently do not have iTunes managing your media, then l'm at a loss.
Dan
So, is it possible? I'm Planning on buying an
1- Store everything in the
2- Connect and external HD to the
I would really appreciate it if somebody could help me out with this.
I boutght a 750 G drive and basically did what you wanted to do with #2 then my apple tv synchs from there.
For some reason I can't just drag and drop. The movies on my external are .avi. It works if I use Vuze to reformat them for iTunes, but this kind of defeats the purpose of having them all on an external HD... Any idea how to make this go without having to re-format everything?